Crunchyroll Post #11: Strawberry Milk from Gintama

Well, well, well. This week I was riding what is colloquially known as “the struggle bus”. I had an entire list of things I could possibly make…lasagna from Mob Psycho 100, gohei mochi from Sweetness and Lightning, PANCAKES from 91 Days!!! I even asked Twitter for some suggestions and got some good ideas for yummy foods to make (thanks @Necara and @thefakiakomis). And yet, I just wasn’t feeling any of them. Too much work to make, or too many ingredients, or too hot to turn on the oven, or too bored to get out of bed…the usual troubles.

To make an troubling situation even more dire, I just started teaching full-time again, which means that I am absolutely SLAMMED with work to do. I already have 105 essays to grade (yes, I 100% am avoiding that by working on this instead) and a slew of start-of-the-year duties to attend to.

LET ME JUST INTERJECT HERE TO SAY: Day 4 of school and the secret anime fan students have started to come out of the woodwork to talk to me about anime MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s so sweet how they think they’re more knowledgeable than I am about anime. An honest exchange between me and one of my students:

Student: So, what’s your favorite anime?

Me: I think a better question is, how deep are you down the anime hole?

Anyway, back on track. By the time I get home, I can barely think straight let alone cook in an orderly and mindful manner. To tell you the truth, I’ve been so busy I forgot to eat breakfast AND lunch yesterday. Then, so determined to stick to my routine, I went out for a run immediately after I got home and almost fell over halfway through from sheer exhaustion and low blood sugar.

Which made me think. Low blood sugar…what other anime character shares the same health condition as me? None other than Gintoki from Gintama! Yes! This is it! This was the answer I was looking for! I’ve already tackled his parfait over on my blog, but I had yet to try his strawberry milk. It was decided I needed to make this milk, and make it now.

So, as some of you may or may not know, I really hate eggs. However, I ALSO really, really hate milk! Kuma-shocking? When I was little, my mom made us drink milk with every meal…but we refused to drink it so she had to flavor it with a little bit of chocolate. But, I’ve never really had just a plain glass of milk, so I was a little nervous to try strawberry milk. I knew it wouldn’t just be milk on its own, but still- besides the time in elementary school when they had strawberry milk once- I’d never tried it before.

Luckily for us all, strawberry milk, made at home, is really yummy and surprisingly healthy tasting, but in a good way. It’s a simple flavor, not overly sweet, not processed tasting- just very fresh and delicious. A serious blend of strawberries and cream. Let’s do this.

Ingredients

AHHHHH!!! No picture this week. I think I accidentally deleted it? No matter, the recipe is beyond simple.

-4 cups whole milk

-1 lb strawberries

-1/2 cup sugar

To Make the Strawberry Milk

In a bowl: Slice strawberries, dust with sugar, stir and let sit for 1 hour.

In your blender, or a food processor: Slice strawberries, pour sugar over top, and pulse together together and pulse a few times to mix. Let sit for 1 hour.

Then, when berries are nice and juicy, blend well until the strawberries aren’t chunky and are a nice strawberry liquid. If you don’t have a blender/food processor, dump your berries out on a cutting board and run your knife through them repeatedly until there aren’t many big chunks and it’s mostly a mass of liquidy-berry mush. Pour this all back into your bowl, including juices.

Then, either blend or stir together with your milk.

Be careful! It gets really frothy if you food process it.

Pour into a glass, and you are done!

Hopefully you can fully appreciate the absolute deliciousness of this milky drink. I can truly appreciate why Gintoki would drink it all the time. It’s fun, a little childish, a little silly, but very, very delicious. Also, surprisingly smoothie-like. I highly recommend as a morning smoothie alternative.

I hope you enjoyed this post! To check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog for more anime and manga themed food. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! 😀